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Under the new timetable, there will be a later Friday evening service between Middlesbrough, Nunthorpe and Whitby, while Northern says its “commitment to run hourly services between Bishop Auckland, Darlington and Saltburn will continue.”

There will also be an extra weekday evening service on the Durham Coast.

The new services form part of Northern’s May timetable change which, says the company, is paving the way for future improvements and getting the network ready for the arrival of new refurbished trains - but involves changes to about 90% of the firm’s 2,600 daily services.

But one commuter told The Gazette new timings on the Saltburn-Middlesbrough-Darlington line could cause issues.

She pointed out that most Saltburn trains will now leave Middlesbrough at 7 minutes past the hour - a timing which, she said, commuters who clock off “on the hour” could struggle to get, meaning they have to wait until the next departure at 14 minutes to the hour.

She said: “The train times are now awful for commuters leaving Middlesbrough for Saltburn. They were 20 past the hour and one minute to the hour, meaning those who finished work at 4 or 5 could get the 20 past and those finishing at half past get the ‘on the hour’.

“The ideal thing would have been to keep these and add an additional one at 20 to the hour.

“The Darlington trains in the other direction are currently roughly the same as Saltburn, but these are going to change to 10 past the hour and 43 mins - commuters will struggle to get the 10 past again.”

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A Northern spokesman said of Monday’s problems: “It has been a difficult morning for some of our customers, in particular on a number of routes around north Manchester extending up to Blackpool, and we are very sorry for the delays and cancellations.

“We will continue to do everything we can to ensure we minimise any service disruption and keep customers informed as quickly as we can through our website and social media. We are working hard to address the issues we faced this morning and are developing plans to help our customers get where they need to be this evening and for the rest of the week.

“The May 2018 timetable change, which went live today for commuters, has seen around 90% of our services change and an extra 1,300 train services a week introduced across our network, the biggest change to local rail for many years. This remains a significant operational challenge and we continue to expect some localised service disruption, which could happen at very short notice.”

• Northern customers are urged to check train times before they travel on nationalrail.co.uk or at northernrailway.co.uk, and on twitter at @northernassist